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Daily News - 19 March 2001
Government council held in Puerto Plata
During the four-hour Mejia government council held in Puerto Plata on Sunday, 18 March, the following announcements were made:
Construction of 5,000 pre-fabricated dwellings, a RD$900 million investment. Dwellers in Los Tablones, Charamicos, Las Piedras and Loma Isabel de Torres slum neighborhoods would be relocated to the new houses.
55,000 square meter water park to be built by private business in Cofresí. US$15 million investment.
99 megawatt wind turbine energy park in Guzmancito, a US$96.5 million private investment.
Cruiseship port US$25 million private investment.
Puerto Plata declared Cultural and Artistic Tourism Pole.
Chocolatera factory installations transferred to the Ministry of Education.
Work started on construction of the La Isabela-El Castillo highway. Work started on the improvement of the panoramic Gurabo, Santiago-Puerto Plata highway (Carretera Turistica).
Government to study private offer for expansion to eight lanes of the Navarette-Puerto Plata highway.
President open to negotiate transfer of golf course and other Playa Dorada properties to private sector.
Work on illumination of Altamira tunnel.
Paving of streets of Sosua.
Presentation of development plans for Puerto Plata by the architectural offices of Miguel Vila and Imbert & Dominguez.
Government to purchase house where General Gregorio Luperon lived in Puerto Plata.
Start of plan to restore of Fortaleza San Felipe, Puerto Plata Lighthouse, hospital used during first US military occupation and army fort built during Trujillo time.
Biodiversity Center opens in Punta Cana
President Mejia went East to Punta Cana on Saturday, 17 March to be present at the formal opening of the Centro de Biodiversidad Universidad Cornell-Punta Cana. The center is a joint project of the University of Cornell and the Grupo Punta Cana (owners of tourist resorts and the Punta Cana International Airport). The Center is in charge of an ecological preserve of 10,000 tareas. US Congressman Charles Rangel came for the event. Also present was Ted Kheel of the Grupo Punta Cana Ted Kheel, who made the contact with the university, his own alma mater.
Also attending were Minister of Foreign Relations Hugo Tolentino Dipp and Minister of Environment Frank Moya Pons.
Frank Rainieri, president of the Punta Cana Group explained that the center is a RD$25 million investment and has already carried out an inventory of the birds in the zone. It will soon have for sale a CD with the songs of the birds, including the second smallest bird in the world.
The biodiversity center seeks to preserve the flora and fauna on the Punta Cana area now under intense tourism development, with 18,000 hotel rooms, most having gone up in the past 10 years. Dr. Mitchell Gaynor came from the University of Cornell to give a conference for the occasion. The Center has signed an agreement with the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales for future research.
The center will promote exchanges between scientists and scholars of the US and the DR. Its work seeks to make valuable contributions to the area ecology, the development of new medicines, the economy and culture.
Minister of Finance announces 10% tax cut in two years
Minister of Finance Fernando Alvarez Bogaert announced that the government plans to reduce corporate taxes to 15% in a two-year period. The corporate tax, at present at 25%, would drop to 20% in a first phase. He said that the government seeks to carry out 5,000 fiscal audits this year, up from 300 last year, as a previous step to the reducing of the tax. He said the idea is to turn the Direccion General de Impuestos Internos (DGII) into a version of the US IRS in less than four months, as per reported by the Listin Diario. Alvarez Bogaert spoke on the Aeromundo television program produced by Guillermo Gomez for Color Vision.
A "boche" for Minister of Industry & Commerce
Hoy newspaper reports that President Hipolito Mejia cut off his Minister of Industry and Commerce Angel Lockward when the latter referred to the Los Tablones beach area contamination, telling him, "Angel, ta' bien, yo conozco el problema." (Angel, fine, I know the problem), asking him to move on. Lockward continued his speech, but the public enjoyed the "boche" or dressing-down to such a point Mejia had to take the microphone again to request silence. During his talk, Lockward (a native of Puerto Plata) three times mentioned former President Joaquin Balaguer, and even mistakenly once referred to President Mejia as President Balaguer. Lockward is from the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano, of which Balaguer is party leader.
Puerto Plata to get a winter ball team
Minister of Sports Cesar Cedeño announced that the Puerto Plata Dolphins would play in the next winter professional baseball league tournament scheduled to start in October 2001. He announced the government was looking into the remodeling of the Jose Briceño Stadium where the games would take place. He spoke during the government council held in Puerto Plata. The Dolphins team franchise was approved several years ago, but their playing had been objected by the professional ball league on grounds that Puerto Plata has a higher than average probability of rain during the winter months.
Beef products confiscated at airports
The director of Cattleranching of the Ministry of Agriculture Marcelino Vargas reports that strict control measures are now in effect at Dominican ports to prevent the entrance of the foot and mouth disease. He said that all meat and dairy products are being confiscated at airports and seaports. He said they are demanding maritime and air lines arriving to the DR to serve only white meat and fish to the passengers. He said they have installed special x-ray machines to inspect the luggage of incoming passengers. The airports have installed special incinerators for confiscated meat and dairy products.
Moving ahead towards a social security law
The Comision Ejecutiva para la Reforma del Sector Salud, a government commission in charge of health matters, announced the success of its meetings with the Consejo Nacional de la Empresa Privada, the private business council, that seek agreements that would lead to the passing of the Social Security Bill. The bill suffered major modifications demanded by the Dominican Medical Association and approved by the Commission. After the negotiations took place, El Caribe newspaper reports there is only one obstacle to the reaching of a consensus of businessmen and the Medical Association. This is regarding to Article 28 of the bill on the payment of commissions on transactions to the Patronato de Recaudo e Informatica de la Seguridad Social. The businessmen feel it would be fair that commissions be paid depending on number of transactions. This would require that the Seguro Nacional de Salud, the insurance plan that would cover government employees and low income members of society and that was promoted by the Medical Association, to make the biggest contribution to the new organization.
New law honoring the "unborn child" protested
The Listin Diario on Sunday became the first newspaper to report that the government passed a law that declares 25 March "Day of the Unborn Child" on 1 February. Opponents to the law say that it was passed surreptitiously following an agreement of Congress, the President's office and the Catholic Church. Opponents protest the civic society was not consulted and that the law violates international agreements signed by the country. Janette Tineo of the Colectiva Mujer y Salud says that the views of the Catholic Church cannot be imposed on the population.
She highlighted that the Catholic Church does not recognize modern contraceptive methods such as the condom and sterilization. And that what is behind the law is the controversial topic of abortion. "The trend to want to impose any kind of group position does not correspond with the present period of democracy and respect for the opinions of citizens that is present in the country," she said in defense of women's rights.
She said that the ideas of the Catholic Church could change as they have in the past. She pointed out that in the past the Catholic Church accepted slavery, repudiated Galileo and condemned the charging of interest rates on loans.
More class hours, pleads Minister of Education
Minister of Education, Vice President Milagros Ortiz Bosch said that parents and society in general should demand that their children receive the stipulated number of class hours.
She pointed out that in the United States, children receive 1,300 hours of instruction, 1,200 in Spain and 1,400 in Japan. In the DR, some 1,025 hours are stipulated on the school calendar, but in reality, public school children only receive about 600 hours, a situation that has to be corrected. She urged parents to demand these hours for their children. The defacto reduction in school periods is due to the fact that unionized teachers take time off from school to discuss their labor problems and to the many strikes that affect public education.
Teachers Union president refutes study on public education problems
The president of the Dominican Association of Professors, Olimpia Gonzalez rejected the findings of a recent study commissioned by Minister of Education Milagros Ortiz Bosch and funded by the US Agency for International Development. The study said that the two biggest enemies of public education in the DR were the politics that corrode the Ministry of Education itself and the public school teachers union.
Consultant Jorge Sanguinetty said that the constant wage increase and other labor benefit struggles of the teachers union and political issues occupy most of the attention of the unionized professors and the employees at the Ministry of Education. He said the Ministry of Education has always given the impression that it is a source of political power to grant jobs and nurture political patronage. According to the study, there is a monopoly of public school education and curiously it is privatized by the political and union interests of the teachers. "They want to become teachers because they desperately need a job, but they are bearers of the deficiencies of public schools from where they come themselves. This is a drama that the influential sectors of Dominican society cannot ignore," says Sanguinetty in the report. He said that the press and society have been indifferent to the problem until now.
Wife of founder of PLD protests new party goals
Mrs. Carmen Quidiello de Bosch, wife of Juan Bosch, the founder of the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana warned there is a distortion in the purposes of the PLD and requested that the name of her husband, former President Juan Bosch, be removed from the final report of the VI Congress of the party. She criticized the talk of the turning the party into a "powerful and invincible electoral machinery" with nothing more being important. She said that her husband (who is very ill) had envisioned the party as an instrument of social transformation.
The new priorities of the party place me with the duty to witness the ethic values that Juan built a political dream for a new nation, she said in a letter to the party with her request.
Excess of government jobs
Former Vice President Carlos Morales criticized the government for promoting the giant growth in numbers of employees of the state. He said the state now employs more than 330,000 persons, most of which hold "botellas" or jobs that could be done without, or for which persons do not do anything, but collect a salary.
In an interview for El Siglo he said the government is creating many unproductive jobs. "I believe that the money that is being invested into unproductive jobs would be better invested in social development," he said.
Morales was Vice President under two Balaguer administrations.
Canadian college seeks Dominican students
Capilano College of Vancouver, Canada will be interviewing potential candidates for their Latin American Management Program. The program consists of one academic year of intense management studies coupled with global, cultural, and language studies with particular focus on how all of those aspects relate to the unique experiences of Latin American markets. Academic focuses include: International Finance, International Law, Trade Logistics, International Marketing, Export Market Development, Human Resources Management, Latin American Cultural Perspectives, North American Cultural Perspectives. That is followed by a one year paid internship in the market that rounds out the Management Professional with valuable of practical experience that can not be replaced by a classroom. On Monday March 19th the director of LAMP, Mr. Alan Donald, will be hosting a free information session to outline the opportunities for management professionals with two or three years experience and an undergraduate degree. The event will take place from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the Hotel Meliá Santo Domingo in Salones Del Este II and III. More information can be obtained from Mr. Andy Jaques at the offices of The Embassy of Canada at (809) 685-1136
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